1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate generally to fluidic interfaces for electronic sensors, electronic sensors for chemical and biochemical detection, arrays of electronic sensors, biomolecule detection, and nucleic acid sequencing.
2. Background Information
Molecular detection platforms that are miniaturized and manufacturable in high volumes, such as electronic sensors, offer the ability to provide access to affordable disease detection in places and situations in which such access was not in the past possible. The availability of affordable molecular diagnostic devices reduces the cost of and improves the quality of healthcare available to society. Affordable and or portable molecular detection devices also have applications, for example, in security and hazard detection and remediation fields and offer the ability to immediately respond appropriately to perceived biological, biochemical, and chemical hazards.
Electronic biochemical and chemical sensors have applicability in molecular diagnostics, substance detection and identification, and DNA detection and sequencing applications. Electronic bio/chemical sensors are manufacturable using semiconductor processing techniques. Sensors can be built on a surface of a silicon wafer that is diced up (cut apart) to make individual chips. Electronic sensors for bio/chemical applications can take a variety of forms, such as for example, the sensors can be electrodes, nano-gap electrodes, FETs (field effect transistors), extended gate FETs, carbon nanotube transistors, and photon detectors.
One approach to disease detection in plants and animals involves analyzing sequence information for nucleic acid molecules such as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). The human genome contains approximately three billion nucleotides of DNA sequence and an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 genes. DNA sequence information can be used to determine multiple characteristics of an individual as well as the presence of and or suceptibility to many common diseases, such as cancer, cystic fibrosis, and sickle cell anemia. A determination of the sequence of the human genome required years to accomplish. The need for nucleic acid sequence information also exists in research, environmental protection, food safety, biodefense, and clinical applications, such as for example, pathogen detection, i.e., the detection of the presence or absence of pathogens or their genetic varients.